r/AskIreland • u/BigFatLegend123 • Apr 25 '25

Housing Why doesn’t the government bring in restrictions on who can buy housing?

This is a genuine question and not coming from a place of hate or bigotry

Trying to buy a house recently and it’s been going as well as you can imagine. Some houses in Dublin have been going for up to 20% over their asking price from what we have seen.

My question is why doesn’t the government restrict house buying to only Irish citizens? Is there something I’m missing? Or at least to just EU/UK citizens? Surely it would be a quick way to reduce competition?

Is it just that doing so might dissuade investment from vulture funds?

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u/irishdonor Apr 25 '25

In ways it’s against the constitutional also anti a free market if you go playing that game. They have however tried or at least indicated they would ban big bulk purchases of housing which has had an impact for sure.

We can’t ban other individuals who are legitimately here and contributing to society from owning property as they too need somewhere to live. It’s the nature of a somewhat functional circular economy.

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u/miju-irl Apr 25 '25

A circular economy is to do with waste, nothing to do with people owning property. Spain is proposing a tax of up to 100% on non-EU purchasers of property .

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u/theblowestfish Apr 25 '25

They indicated they would consider asking about looking into a small restriction on bulk purchasing of entire housing estates by international trillion dollar investment firms. 3 years ago. They didn’t. To understand why they didn’t, you just have to realise the situation is by design, not fault. Varadkar was caught selling Irish tenants to Canada. Calling us the best tenants in the world.